Realms

Realms is a 2018 action-adventure-fantasy-drama series made by Wither. It is planned to be embedded on several fiction sites at one point.

Short Summary

The series revolves around a group of kids and teens from an unnamed, fictional city in Wisconsin, USA, all of whom attend the same school. At one point, the group comes across a series of catacombs while exploring the forests near their city. Inside, they find a mysterious gemstone, but it's submerged in a weird, cement-like material. In their spare time, the group returns time and time again to make progress on uncovering the gemstone.

One of their conversations is overheard by Julian, the school's most feared bully, and he follows them to the catacombs. There, the group finally uncovers the gem, only for Julian to reveal himself and snatch it; this, however, causes a reaction from the artefact that warps them all to a mysterious multiverse with different laws of how things work and function, known as Dertelion. Due to the physics of the multiverse, the entire group gets a set of special powers.

Now they must seem to escape this reality unharmed, for not everyone here is benevolent, and deal with the problems they encounter on their way. But something far more sinister lurks in between them...

This dropdown contains spoilers for future storylines regarding this series.

Eventually, the group finds out about the existence of another gemstone that warps them back to their reality if used. However, just as they are finally about to get home, Julian betrays them, revealing that he only truly sided with them for his personal gain, and that he'll leave them trapped forever and lie to everyone that they left to locations unknown. The gemstone however, due to how it is operated, doesn't send Julian back home but immensely amplifies him and bestows him with the goal of linking Dertelion to the real world so that they could be fused. The group must now fight who they once considered their friend and save the worlds from his power.

Terminology

In Dertelion, many inhabitants have several special abilities, called "Talents". Everyone who enters the realm auto-receives Talents wether they want it or not. Once attained, Talents can't be "lost" or "forgotten" by conventional means. Talents may or may not be a magic-based ability; this varies per Talent. For example, one can have Electromancy (Lightning/Electricity-based Magic) as a Talent, but it is also very common to just have Electrokinesis (with no magic involved).

Those aforementioned groups of individuals can also ascend to several "Stages". They begin at Stage I, with a couple Talents and usually increased physical characteristics. One can ascend into a higher Stage by various means; one example being mastering one's current Talents and using them very frequently, which will allow the user to ascend at random. Another such instance can be if the user is losing and highly injured in a battle, or has been heavily provoked by e.g. psychological and/or physical abuse or the death of a loved one at the hands of their enemy. When the user enters a higher Stage, their physical characteristics will be amplified, as will their existing Talents. One can also develop greater versions of existing Talents (e.g. hypnosis → mind control, time travel or time freezing → time manipulation), or even entirely new Talents. Sometimes, the user will not have their existing Talents expanded, or learn new Talents; however, users will always either learn a new Talent, have a previous one extended; no matter what, one of the two will happen.